Archive for June, 2009

To the local companies giving support to me and other NYC riders who are going on this cross country bike ride for the Bicycle Film Festival and 42Below vodka, Thank you!

When I first found out about being picked for this huge ride one of the things I thought was, what am I going to wear. Prolly was good enough to point me in the way of OUTLIER. After a few emails and meeting up for some coffee at Gimme! Abe hooked me up with some really nice clothes. I had seen some friends with some of the locally made items Outlier makes but being that it’s on the pricey side I didn’t see myself able to buy anything right away. Mostly because I’ve been out of town 6 out of the last 9 weekends and I just bought a new camera for the trip. But because of the type of riding I’m going to be doing, avg. 60-80 miles a day for 50+ days straight, Abe was happy to set me up with some summer shorts that double as swim trunks, a high quality (ultra fine 17.5 micron) merino tee and a Victor Osborne collaboration wool cap. All of which are made in NYC. This is going to be some product testing but after checking out the clothes, it makes perfect sense. I’ll be packing light so if you can only have one, have something that is really nice!

Another friend and NYC rider, Kyle who kills shit at Dave’s Quality Meat walks into Trackstar the other day while I was working as the shop help and he was showing off his new shoes by Nike. I liked the slim and lightweight look of the shoe and was thinking I should maybe rethink using my big puffy skate shoes as my casual footwear for this two month long ride. Somewhere in the mix he said he could get me a pair. Later, Prolly did a post about the same shoe. I took him up on the offer and I walked into his DQM office and was pumped to leave with some not-for-sale-yet gear. After I left his office I rode around the corner to sign up for the Livestrong / Brooklyn Machine Works give away. $1 and you could win a custom BMW Gangsta Track.

Another good thing to happen to me since this whole thing started is Raw Revolution, a New York company, is going to send a couple of the NYC rider off with a few boxes of organic food bars to fuel us along our way. I remember Raw Revolution from when they sponsored a Los Marcos bike polo tournament and really liked them. I can’t say what flavors they are sending just yet but I know they will be gluten free, vegan, wheat, corn, soy, trans-fat, cholesterol and refined sugar free. That means they will be keeping me healthy! That’s good! because anybody that knows me knows that 50% of my diet is Red Bull and Snickers.

Last but not least Joe and Luke at Brooklyn Machine Works for allowing me to order some much needed parts last minute.

And of course ZACH at TrackstarNYC for the wheel build he’s about to do for me double last minute.

Trackstar has a few of these on the shelf right now. Custom made, heat treated, four tools in one, and it has some Castlevania art. They are made with the love of Zach and Jarrett and named the “Simon Belmont Special”

I was looking around for more info about this vodka company that I’m going to be spending the next two months promoting and found this, a track bike. I’m guessing who ever wins the race and gets to LA first will be taking home a new fixed gear.

There is a simple forum set up for the 42 riders going coast to coast and I’ve found a few others blogs by fellow riders. I have added a blogroll in the side bar with a few new links, check them out.
This is a list of the bigger cities I’ll be hitting this summer. The dates reflect when we will arrive/the night we will be staying. There are zero rest days on this trip so I’ll most likely be hanging out at night (if at all) and rolling out of town the next morning. But as of right now I do not know what our ride schedule is beyond cities/dates.

Drew and company were at the COG/MKE polo tourny showing off some polo gear available from Milwaukee Bicycle Co. This is the Bruiser 700 with a MKE 48 spoke polo wheelset and MKE Pologuard. You can pre-order the frameset for $489.99 and check out the OnMilwaukee.com interview with Drew about custom bikes. Read it.

Hey just a quick thanks to Red Bull for sending out the Red Bull girls to the COG/MKE polo tourny last weekend with lots for cold cans for the polo crew. They went quick. Hey Todd this was Zachs way of saying thanks…

Milwaukee Bicycle Co. was showing some products and in the mix was this new Pologuard. I see two big differences, one is the way it looks and the second thing is what it fits to. This one is designed to fit more normal 110BCD cranksets with five exposed spider arms. I guess the third thing is that it’s lighter.
I did hear that this new design will be available for the Sugino XD soon. Keep an eye on Ben’s Cycle for when it drops.

I found out that I’m going South. After the huge kick off bash during the Bicycle Film Festival, I’ll be leaving on June 25th and getting to LA August 21st. The LA BFF doesn’t start till the 26th so I guess I’ll have a few days of rest before the second celebration.

I wish I had more time to keep this blog up to date but so many things in my life are changing right now. I took loads of photos at the 6th Mid-West polo tournament but some of them (over 250 images) got deleted due to a mistake I make with my memmory cards. Oops. I still had plenty to remember the weekend by. It was mostly action shots that i lost. Here is a link to some of the ones I turned on for public view on my Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/24081430@N06/sets/72157618934858356/
This summer I’m going to be on a cross country bike ride and I’ll be away from any computer for most of that time. Posting and sharing photos may be less often, so you all know. I did just get back from the COG/MKE Bicycle Co. polo tourney in Milwaukee and I did get a few dozen shot out there but I think the guys at COG might want a few for an upcoming issue so for the time being I won’t have any here or on my flickr.

Speaking of the COG/MKE tourny I want to say Thanks! to Jake Newborn for hosting a great tourny and for letting my team and I sleep at his house. Drew at Milwaukee Bicycle Co. / Bens Cycle for putting so much time, effort, prizes, and help into this tourny. There is no way it would have been everything it was without you! And a personal thanks to RJ and the guys in the shop for letting me use the stand to reassemble my polo bike. Thanks to COG mag for presenting one of the best talent pools of polo players. The teams in Milwaukee were from all over! And all of them were the best of the best. Great new issue by the way, my boys in Dayton were stoaked to see the newest issue a little early. I also met the guys from Velocity who came out to see some first hand polo action. OH! and thanks to Red Bull for sending out the Red Bull girls with some cold cans on Saturday and Sunday!
I keep thinking I should carry around a note book and make notes of some of the quotes i hear at these polo weekend events. I have a few funny things I heard floating around in my head. The collective group that gets together for these things really make my day. I’m gonna miss the next couple of tournys. But I can’t deny that I could use a break from polo in general. Riding from NY to CA with a group of strangers isn’t what I would think of first but it fell in my lap and I’m gonna run with it. Los Marcos may be my next tourny. See you there in NYC.